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I-NewsWire Press Release
March 4 2005

HUMAN RIGHTS EXHIBITION OPENS AT HEADQUARTERS ON 4 MARCH

To mark the conclusion of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights
Education (1995-2004) and the launch of the new World Programme for
Human Rights Education (2005-2007), the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the United Nations Postal
Administration (UNPA) are sponsoring the opening of an exhibit by the
Armenian artist Yuri Gevorgian in the South Gallery of the General
Assembly Visitors’ Lobby on Friday, 4 March.

i-Newswire, 2005-03-04 – The exhibit consists of six canvases — each
measuring 6 feet high and 55 inches wide — and is the largest
commissioned stamp art in the UNPA’s history. The artwork was
designed for commemorative stamps dedicated to human rights education
and encompasses a variety of themes set forth in the 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the Preamble to the United Nations
Charter `to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the
dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and
women and of nations large and small’. The exhibit will be on
display in the South Gallery until 31 March.

In conjunction with this exhibit, there will be a reception and dance
recital from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the South Gallery. Statements will
be made by Mr. Gevorgian, the artist; Craig Mokhiber, Deputy Director
of the New York Office, OHCHR; and Robert Gray, Chief of the UNPA.

For more information about this exhibit, please call Jan Arnesen,
Department of Public Information ( DPI ), at tel.: ( 212 ) 963-8531;
Robert Stein ( UNPA ) at tel.: ( 212 ) 963-4329; or Sharon
Brandstein ( OHCHR ) at tel.: ( 212-963-7021 ) or visit the Web site
at

Related Web sites: Yuri Gevorgian: ; LKW Dance
Company: ; OHCHR: ; UNPA:

If you have questions regarding information in these press release
contact the company listed below. Please do not contact us as we are
unable to assist you with your inquiry. We disclaim any content
contained in this press release.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Messenger, Georgia
March 4 2005

European court rejects Armenian suit

According to the Azeri newspaper 525 Gazeta, the European Court of
Human Rights rejected as groundless the case regarding the so-called
“Armenian Genocide.”
According to Turkish media, Armenians expressed recently that
Turkey’s membership in the European Union is unacceptable for them
unless Ankara acknowledges the “Armenian Genocide.” The paper notes
that even the official inclusion of Turkey as a candidate for the
membership in the European Union contradicts with the legal documents
of the organization. Referring to this, the paper writes, the
European-Armenian Society (headquartered in Marseilles, France) filed
a case in the European Court regarding the exclusion of Turkey from
the list of the candidate countries for membership of the European
Union.
The European Court considered the Armenian suit recently, where the
representatives of the European-Armenian Society stated that the
European Parliament is the highest body of the European Union and as
such it can rule that failing to acknowledge the “genocide” makes
Turkey ineligible for membership in this organization.
“That is why this issue must be considered once again and the
decision of the European Union, which allowed Turkey to be included
in the list of candidate countries for membership in the EU, also
should be changed,” the paper notes.
Afterwards, the plaintiffs accused the judge of injustice and
partiality towards Turkey. Members of Armenian organizations of
Europe state that they will conduct demonstrations in order not to
allow Turkey to become a member of the European Union without
recognizing the so-called genocide. However, Turkish society as well
as the government positively assessed the decision of the European
court. The paper notes that this decision deadlocked Armenians and
they were forced to reconcile with defeat, because nobody will be
able to block Turkey on its path to becoming a member of the European
Union.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Globe and Mail, Canada
March 4 2005

All the right moves

By Liam Lacey
Friday, March 4, 2005 – Page R10

Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine

**½

Directed by Vikram Jayanti

Classification: G

Vikram Jayanti’s documentary about Garry Kasparov’s 1997 loss of a
chess match to an IBM computer begins by establishing the chess
master as a figure of historic importance. As a half-Armenian,
half-Jewish outsider, he rocked the Russian establishment when he
took the world chess championship from Anatoly Karpov in 1985. His
play over the next few years earned him the highest ranking in chess
history.

Kasparov is a compelling film subject: suave, sardonic and as
emotionally high-pitched as he is intellectually gifted. He takes the
film crew to Moscow, where his star first ascended, and later to
Manhattan, or “the scene of the crime,” where he met his defeat.

In 1996, he played an IBM computer called Deep Blue and won four
games to two. The next year, he was invited to play a second match
with an improved version of the computer, in an event carried live on
the Internet. Kasparov won the first game of the rematch. Then came
the second game, when the computer did not fall for Kasparov’s trap.
The world champion’s game unravelled and he eventually resigned,
inadvertently walking away from a possible draw. He drew three more
times before falling apart in the last game.

Newsweek called it “the brain’s last stand,” signalling the moment
when machines passed humans in intelligence. (The physical test,
presumably, was lost around the time John Henry “whupped that steel
on down.”) But is that what really happened?

Kasparov is convinced that IBM secretly used the computer and human
help to gain the advantage. The film makes a persuasive case that a
merely good chess player who could see the game’s big picture, armed
with the 200-million-moves-per-second calculating power of Deep Blue,
could defeat the champion. And he’s convinced that Deep Blue didn’t
consistently play like a machine, and subsequently learned that IBM
had secretly hired grandmasters to work on Deep Blue. IBM had both
motive and means. One of the team of programmers says he felt their
jobs were on the line. Contrary to ordinary practice, they did not
allow Kasparov to study any other games by Deep Blue. The stakes were
high: IBM stock rose a startling 15 per cent the day after the match.

The IBM computer scientists counter that Kasparov didn’t understand
how good their program was. They admit they tried to out-psych him,
which they managed to do. Nick De Firmian, who was one of the
grandmasters hired by the IBM team, has written: “Kasparov played
much worse than usual, trying a faulty anti-computer strategy when he
would likely have won by normal play.”

In overemphasizing the conspiracy case, Game Over moves from being a
compelling documentary to a frankly irritating one. There’s a
whispering voiceover, spooky low-camera angles and sinister music.
There’s also a story about an early version of Deep Blue, a
chess-playing machine called The Turk, which defeated Napoleon. Far
too often, the film returns to an animatronic figure in a turban
moving figures around a board. We also have clips of the 1927 silent
film The Chess Player, about the same machine, which is shown to be
secretly worked by magicians.

None of this solves the question of whether Kasparov lost or was
cheated. Whether in Moscow or New York, Kasparov found himself
playing a faceless enemy — the Soviet system in 1985 or IBM 11 years
later. When he starts talking about IBM supplying building passes
that didn’t work and telescopes glimpsed in office windows facing his
hotel, he sounds like he’s raving.

Chess is a game rife with paranoia — both American world champions
Bobby Fischer and Paul Morphy succumbed to the disease — and
Kasparov’s belief in IBM’s corporate greed isn’t convincing. Instead,
it’s tantalizingly conceivable, which is where the intrigue lies.
It’s not paranoia when they’re really out to get you, is it?

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Wheatfield soul train

MEDIUM COOL

Toronto Eye Weekly
03.03.05

BY JASON ANDERSON

In the months since it opened, Atom Egoyan and Hussain Amarshi’s
Camera media bar near Queen and Ossington has attracted no shortage of
photo spreads for its chic design. Now they face a trickier task than
impressing the style mavens: establishing a consistent sensibility for
the programming.

While some Camera selections have been appropriate to the vanguard
nature of the space — and its one major limitation, the lack of a
35mm projector — others could have just as easily appeared at the
Carlton or a rep theatre. Of course, those places tend to discourage
viewers from slugging back vino, so Camera wins points there. But due
to its unusual combination of functions (cinema, bar, gallery) and
Egoyan’s rep as both auteur and cinephile, Camera can also afford to
be more adventurous than other venues and show work that defies the
conventions not just of multiplex fare but the middlebrow titles that
dominate the art-house circuit.

Opening this weekend for a seven-night run, Clive Holden’s Trains of
Winnipeg () is exactly the sort of movie that belongs at Camera —
idiosyncratic, independent and supremely inventive. Holden’s first
feature-length work, it’s part of a multidisciplinary project that has
already yielded a book of poems, a spoken-word disc and a website, all
with the same prosaic yet oddly endearing title. (Could anything be
more Canadian?) Consisting of 14 “film poems,” Trains of Winnipeg
juxtaposes the poet and filmmaker’s ruminations on landscape and
memory with a wide array of visual strategies, including home movies,
travel films and found footage, which are then goosed up with
hand-processing effects and digital treatments. The richly detailed
sound design incorporates eerie, loop-based music by Christine Fellows
and the Weakerthans’ Jason Tait and John K. Samson (Winnipeggers all).

As much as I love Holden’s movie — it’s one of the finest
non-narrative movies ever made in this country — I can understand if
you cringe at the phrase “film poems.” I did too. I imagined a
slow-motion shot of geese in flight and a wispy-voiced narrator
murmuring about the ineffable sadness of a beach at twilight — in
other words, something too pretentious to work in either medium, let
alone both at once. There’s also the larger question of whether film
and poetry really belong together. If the best poetry consists of
words arranged to create the purest, most indelible form of linguistic
expression, then film strives to speak entirely through images. The
ultimate ambition of each form is to negate any need for the other.

Yet the film poem has existed for nearly as long as cinema. Sometimes
cited as the first American avant-garde film, Charles Sheeler and Paul
Strand’s Manhatta (1921) used intertitles by Walt Whitman. Man Ray’s
L’Etoile de Mer (1928) is taken from a poem by Robert Desnos. The
surrealists’ flagrantly poetic school of filmmaking eventually yielded
such works as Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet (1930) and Jean Vigo’s
marginally more narrative-based L’Atalante (1934). The exquisite
collaborations between director Marcel Carné and poet Jacques Prévert
in the ’30s and ’40s (most famously Children of Paradise) also bear
traces of the French film-poem ideal. With Meshes of the Afternoon
(1943), Maya Deren fused her interests in poetry, dance and cinema to
establish a new mode of expression. The aphorism-filled essay films of
Agnès Varda and Chris Marker established another, as did the wild and
wordy fantasias of Derek Jarman. In Canada, the precise, haiku-like
short films of Philip Hoffman have greatly influenced the experimental
film scene.

Holden deploys many of these approaches in Trains of Winnipeg as he
explores and subverts relationships between word and image. In the
opening piece, “Love in the White City,” Holden’s wry examination of
urban dread is accompanied by the sight of his legs walking in the
four corners of the screen — the repetitiveness of the image and the
looping, crackly music enhance the effects of the poem’s subtler
rhythmic structure and sense of futile motion. In “Burning Down the
Suburbs,” a family of miniature figures watch a model car in flames,
dramatizing a scene that is not described in the poem but still
complements the ones that are. The grainy, distorted home-movie
fragments in “Nanaimo Station” seem as degraded as the narrator’s
falsely idyllic memories of his family in a time when “the food was
like magazines and the cars were all big.” In “Hitler! (revisited),” a
tribute to Holden’s schizophrenic brother Niall, onscreen text
replaces the voiceover, a stylistic tack that emphasizes the
interiority of Niall’s existence. In the title piece, the words
disappear altogether, replaced by the amped-up visual poetry of the
trains.

By the time the wheels stop moving, Holden has provided ample proof of
the film poem’s ability to engage and enlighten. Wry, wise and damn
near sublime, Trains of Winnipeg makes you wish there were more movies
just like it. Alas, the challenges of cine-poetry remain daunting, as
they probably should — when this stuff goes wrong, it can go
eye-bleedingly, teeth-grindingly wrong. Even so, I hope Camera’s run
of Holden’s mesmerizing work will inspire others to forego familiar
tactics and try dreaming in verse.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Yemenidjian: MGM Says CEO’s Bonus Less Glamorous

Doers and doings in business, entertainment and technology

Faces In The News

Forbes.com
02.28.05

By Greg Levine

Cut. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (nyse: MGM) on Monday said it
paid Chairman and Chief Executive Alex Yemenidjian a
$1.13 million bonus last year. That’s down from $1.45
million the CEO got for 2003, according to the
company’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission. The legendary film and TV studio said the
head honcho’s 2004 package also included a base salary
of $2.5 million, which stayed the same over the last
two years. Although the studio posted a 2004 loss of
$29.2 million, or 12 cents per share, compare that to
MGM’s loss of $161.8 million, or 66 cents per share,
in 2003. Yemenidjian has served as chairman and CEO of
the entertainment production company since April 1999,
and a director since November 1997. The terms of his
employment agreement call for him to keep the C-level
posts through April 30, 2007. MGM is in the process of
being acquired by an investors’ consortium with Sony
(nyse: SNE) in its vanguard. Industry rumor had
suggested Yemenidjian as Michael Eisner’s successor at
The Walt Disney Co. (nyse: DIS) when the latter leaves
the CEO post in 2006, but MGM’s head waved off the
idea, saying he preferred to own a significant piece
of the next firm he captains.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

A1 Plus | 17:38:55 | 02-03-2005 | Social |

SHOOTING IN THE ECONOMICAL INSTITUTE

Today there has been an incident in the Yerevan State Economical
Institute Economical faculty. Hamlet Qeshishyan, a student of the
faculty, has shot the dean and the deputy dean of the faculty with a
blast gun. It is known that they are alive. According to experts, shots
of the blast guns are usually not mortal.

According to a preliminary variant, the cause of the incident was that
Hamlet Qeshishyan had an exam problem with the professors. By the way,
the student’s father, Tigran Qeshishyan, is a commander of a military
unit in the Ministry of Defense. At present Hamlet Qeshishyan is being
looked for.

The informational department of the RA Police confirmed the information.
The worker of the service said that there will be an official
announcement within the next half an hour.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

European official details Armenia’s action plan for New Neighbourhood
programme

Mediamax news agency
3 Mar 05

YEREVAN

The head of the economic, political and information department of the
European Commission delegation in Georgia and Armenia, Jacques
Vantomme, presented in Yerevan today the report on Armenia published
by the European Commission on 2 March.

Vantomme said that the European Commission has recommended that the
Council of the European Union initiate talks with Armenia on the
beginning of the work on the Individual Action Plan within the
framework of the EU’s New Neighbourhood policy.

Vantomme pointed out that the main provisions of the Individual Action
Plan include:

strengthening democratic institutions and reform of the election
legislation in accordance with the recommendations of the Council of
Europe and the OSCE, holding democratic elections, reform of the local
government system and of constitution in accordance with the Council
of Europe recommendations;

strengthening the protection of human right and fundamental freedoms;

improving the business climate and modernizing the public sector;

continuing efforts to fight corruption, reform of the tax and customs
administration and legislation, ensuring progress in poverty
reduction;

mothballing the Armenian nuclear power plant;

ensuring progress in the settlement of conflicts and enhanced regional
cooperation.

Vantomme confirmed today that the European Union is ready to allocate
100m euros to Armenia to provide it with alternative energy sources
after the nuclear power plant has been mothballed. Although the
European Union insists on closing down the nuclear power plant, no
specific date has been given, he added.

Commenting on the settlement of conflicts, Vantomme pointed out that
in the future the European Union will continue to render the necessary
assistance to the OSCE Minsk Group in the settlement of the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ASBAREZ ONLINE
TOP STORIES
03/03/2005
TO ACCESS PREVIOUS ASBAREZ ONLINE EDITIONS PLEASE VISIT OUR
WEBSITE AT <;HTTP://

1) Euro-Armenian Federation Applauds Courage of EU-Turkey Delegation Vice
President
2) Azeri FM and OSCE Representatives Meet, Await Oskanian Recovery
3) CIS Head in Armenia
4) Fierce Critic of Azeri Government Gunned Down, Opposition Rises to Occasion
5) Minaskanian to Perform at Benefit Concert at UCLA

1) Euro-Armenian Federation Applauds Courage of EU-Turkey delegation Vice
President

BRUSSELS–Recent statements by the vice president of the European Union-Turkey
Inter Parliamentary Delegation Jacques Toubon, provoked rage among Turkish
officials participating in the meeting, particularly Sukru Elekdag (CHP-
Kemalist Party) who served as the former ambassador to the United States, and
Oguz Demiralp, Turkey’s permanent representative to the European Union.
Toubon (PPE, France) raised the “unquestionable reality” of the Armenian
genocide during the 53rd meeting of the body, telling the Turkish delegates
that the recognition of the Armenian genocide constituted an “important
element
for Europe” and of its “common values.”
“We welcome the courage and the perseverance of Jacques Toubon who was not
influenced by the usual excessive and high bidding methods of the Turkish
deputies,” declared Hilda Tchoboian, president of the Euro-Armenian
Federation.
`As long as the Turkish State uses threatens Europe, and preaches fear to its
public, it proves that Turkey is not European,” Tchoboian.
Toubon also highlighted the numerous recognitions of the genocide by member
countries of the European Union, the most recent being by the Netherlands,
which took place on December 21, 2004, just after the European Summit in
Brussels.
He stressed that the European Parliament, since 1987, had on numerous
occasions, recognized the reality of the Genocide and, has since, continually
asked Turkey to do the same. He explained that “by refusing to ratify the
Treaty of Sevres of 1920, Turkey did not want to recognize this genocide,”
which could be explained in the political context of that time, but “90 years
later, Turkey must change,” and adopt European values, while recognizing this
historic reality.
The Turkish press, spearheaded by the Turkish Daily News, immediately
distorted Toubon’s remarks, alleging that he had asked Turkey to ratify the
Treaty of Sevres. This treaty, signed notably by the first Armenian Republic
and by the Ottoman Empire (as well as UK, France, Italy, Belgium, Poland,
Czechoslovakia, now members of EU) constituted the reparation for the
wrongs of
the genocide but was never ratified by Ankara, while the later Treaty of
Lausanne, eluded the question.

2) Azeri FM and OSCE Representatives Meet, Await Oskanian Recovery

PRAGUE (Combined Sources)–According to Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov met, in Prague, with the co-Chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group and the Head of the organization’s mission that
recently visited regions around Mountainous Karabagh Republic.
Although Mammadyarov and Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian were scheduled to
meet in Prague on Wednesday, their talks were postponed by at least one week
because of Oskanian’s continuing illness. A Ministry spokesman revealed that
Oskanian is under medical care and the concrete date of the meeting depends on
the improvement of his health.

3) CIS Head in Armenia

YEREVAN (Combined Sources)–CIS Executive Committee chairman Vladimir
Rushailo,
met Armenian leaders on Thursday for talks on CIS reforms and measures to
increase the effectiveness of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Though economic cooperation is one of CIS’s priorities, Rushailo revealed
that
business resources are not fully utilized, and proposed the creation of
business centers throughout CIS countries. He commended Armenia for its
outstanding exposition at the All-Russia Exhibition Center, saying that it is
one of the best.
“Despite objective and subjective difficulties, cooperation between CIS
countries, primarily economic, humanitarian, and the joint fight against
crime,
as well as security, is developing effectively,” President Robert Kocharian
told Rushailo, but stressed the necessity to increase CIS activity.
The CIS head took time to place a wreath at the memorial to the victims of
the
Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey. “Each people has sacred places. This
Memorial is a sacred for the Armenian people and I think it my duty to
visit it
when I am in Yerevan,” Rushailo said during his fifth visit to the Memorial.

4) Fierce Critic of Azeri Government Gunned Down, Opposition Rises to Occasion

US urges Azerbaijan to do utmost in investigating murder to bring killers to
justice

BAKU (Reuters)–Azeri President Ilham Aliyev warned opponents on Thursday to
refrain from turning the funeral of a murdered journalist and fierce
government
critic into a public protest against his rule.
Elmar Huseinov, 38, was shot dead on Wednesday by gunmen on the stairway of
his apartment bloc. He was the editor-in-chief of Monitor magazine and a
staunch critic of the government.
Leaders of Azerbaijan’s fractured opposition vowed to turn Friday’s funeral
into a show of unity and public discontent with the government.
“We will organize the funeral in a way that will show the popular hatred of
the regime,” said Ali Kerimli, the head of the key National Front opposition
party. “The opposition will unite in removing this regime in a peaceful way.”
Aliyev, in televised comments after an emergency meeting of his Security
Council, said that Huseinov’s murder served the interests of those who want to
destabilize the country.
“The tragedy for [Huseinov’s] family can become an instrument in certain
hands,” he said. “This cannot be allowed.”
“We should not make a political campaign out of this crime. We will not allow
this,” Aliyev added. “All political forces should behave with patience and not
break the law and not use this killing to advance their own ambitions.”
Azerbaijan became the former Soviet Union’s first dynasty when Aliyev
succeeded his iron-fisted father in 2003 as leader of the mainly Muslim state
of 8 million people.
His election, criticized by observers as falling short of international
standards, was greeted with protests in the capital in which two people were
killed and scores injured.
More than 100 people were arrested. Most have since been released but several
opposition leaders were handed jail terms. The European Union said this month
there were “extensive, credible, allegations” of torture in the country’s
jails.
Huseinov’s magazine has been closed several times and fined for critical
articles about leading politicians and businessmen. The murdered journalist
had
spent six months in jail for his opposition activities.

NO REVOLUTION

In a clear reference to demands by opposition leaders and Huseinov’s family,
Aliyev said he was ready to let foreign experts join the investigation.
The US embassy in Baku urged the Azeri government to do everything possible to
investigate the murder.
“The US embassy urges the Azerbaijani government to do everything possible to
investigate Elmar Huseynov’s murder fully and to bring his killer or
killers to
justice,” the US embassy said in a faxed statement.
“Elmar Huseinov’s death is a great loss to the ongoing development of
democracy and press freedom in Azerbaijan,” an embassy statement said.
Azeri opposition plans reflected growing popular unrest in some ex-Soviet
states. There has been an upsurge in street protests even in Russia, most of
them over social reforms.
In just over a year, new governments have come to power in Georgia and
Ukraine
on the back of ‘people power’ revolutions.
That has triggered speculation that the position of other leaders in a region
stretching from the edge of the European Union to central Asia might be
shaky.
But Azeri officials say Aliyev’s popularity and the memory of the political
turmoil in Azerbaijan which almost turned into civil war in 1993 leave no
chance for a revolution.
“People will not be so naive as to entrust their fate to those would bring
them to the edge of the abyss once again,” presidential chief of staff Ramiz
Mehtiyev said last month.

5) Minaskanian to Perform at Benefit Concert at UCLA

LOS ANGELES–Raphael Minaskanian will perform a benefit piano recital
featuring
works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and Melik-Aslanian. The event, sponsored by
RAA/USA (Research on Armenian Architecture) in support of scholarships for
CASPS (The Committee for Armenian Students in Public Schools), will take place
at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall, on Sunday, March 13 at 3 p.m.
Born in Tehran in a music loving family, Minaskanian began his musical
studies
at the age of six. He made his first stage appearance at the age of ten and
shortly after, performed Iran’s first televised classical piano recital.
Studying under the distinguished teacher and composer Emanuel Melik-Aslanian,
he honed his technical skills, making frequent stage and television
appearances. After graduation from high school, he came to the United States
with the goal of studying medicine, but it was Aube Tzerko, Professor of music
at UCLA who encouraged him to devote himself to music. Thereafter, he studied
with internationally known master teachers including Aube Tzerko in Los
Angeles, Karl Ulrich Schnabel in Italy, and Ilona Kabos in London and at the
Juilliard School of Music in New York.
Minaskanian’s London debut in the Purcell Room of Royal Festival Hall won him
the acclaim of critics including that of the famed Eric Warr, who described
the
performance as a “most promising debut,” and his artistic ability and
technique
as “mature” and filled with “excitement, brilliance, and unfailing clarity.”
Returning to Iran, Raphael was invited by the renowned Soviet Armenian
composer
and pianist Arno Babajanian, to share the stage with him, in a most memorable
musical event, for the very first public performance of his Rhapsody for Two
Pianos, in Tehran.
Over the past two decades, Raphael has continued to teach and perform, making
frequent solo, chamber, and orchestral appearances. On the occasion of Aram
Khachaturian’s 100th birthday festivities, he was a soloist in several events
with the Armenian String Virtuosi under the internationally recognized
conductor Loris Tjeknavorian. In addition to his busy stage and teaching
schedule, Raphael is involved with community work, and regularly shares his
art
to help raise funds for humanitarian and educational causes. He recently
honored the memory of his beloved teacher and mentor, Melik-Aslanian, with two
critically acclaimed solo recitals, benefiting geriatric research and special
pediatric care.
CASPS was created in the summer of 1994 by a group of concerned educators and
citizen leaders with the goal to lay the foundation of a grass roots
organization that would address the social and educational needs of immigrant
children in public schools. Their mandate was to find solutions by
collaborating with school districts and administrators and by directly working
with students and parents. Positive feedback from schools and families and the
growing demand for intervention by the community, provided the impetus for
expansion into case management services, academic counseling and group
therapy,
staff development workshops for teachers, and a special effective parenting
program available in Armenian, English, and Spanish. To date, CASPS has served
over 3000 children and parents in all ethnic groups.
Tickets ranging from $100, $40, $30, to $15 for students can be purchased at
the following:

Call UCLA at (310) 825-2101 or <;;

Ticketmaster (213)365-3500 or
<;;

Call CASPS at (818) 222-7170

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ArmenPress
March 3 2005

HAYRUSGAZARD WINS TENDER FOR CONSTRUCTION OF IRAN-ARMENIA GAS
PIPELINE

YEREVAN, MARCH 3, ARMENPRESS: Armenian energy minister Armen
Movsisian announced today that a joint Russian-Armenian Hayrusgazard
company was recognized the winner of a tender announced late last
year for construction of the Armenian section of Iran-Armenian gas
pipeline. The project’s subcontractor is Iranian company Sanir, which
will supply pipes and other equipment.
Movsisian said he was lately in Iran and saw that all preparatory
work was completed. He said field work and digging pipeline trenches
will kick off in late March. Pipes are expected to arrive in Armenia
in June to be followed by assembling work.
In response to a question whether Armenia has enough political
resource to push ahead the idea of transiting Iranian natural gas to
Georgia and Ukraine in defiance of Russia’s Gazprom that may increase
drastically the price of Russian gas supplied to Armenia, Movsisian
said the technical parameters of the would-be pipeline do not allow
it, but added if such a question arises a parallel pipeline may be
built.
“Today, thanks to the policy of Armenian president we are able to
maintain privileged prices of Russian gas, which ships it to Armenia
at a price that does not differ from Russian domestic price,” he
said, adding that Armenia is a sovereign country and “if it finds
that transit of Iranian gas to Georgia, Ukraine and further to Europe
would be economically more profitable, it will find political
resource to push it ahead.”
Movsisian denied allegations that Armenia is facing external
pressure in connection with the Iran-Armenian pipeline. He refused to
comment on its possible fate in case of escalation of Iran-USA
standoff.
The agreement was signed in Yerevan last May. Under it the
pipeline should be operative by 2007, January 1. Over next 20 years
Iran will deliver to Armenia 36 billion cubic meters of natural gas,
the bulk of which will be used for electricity production, which will
be shipped to Iran as payment. In the first stage of the project 100
km-long pipeline will be built in Iran and then the 41 km-long
section in Armenia.
The total cost of the project is between $200-$250 million.
Hayrusgazard is the sole supplier of Russian gas to Armenia. Armenian
government and Russian Gazprom hold each 45 percent of its shares,
and ten percent is owned by Russian Itera.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITAR-TASS, Russia
March 3 2005

Rushailo, Armenian leaders discuss CIS reform

YEREVAN, March 3 (Itar-Tass) – CIS Executive Committee chairman
Vladimir Rushailo met Armenian leaders on Thursday for talks on the
CIS reforms and measures to increase the effectiveness of the
Commonwealth.

Rushailo favoured the CIS reform to make its activity more effective
and dynamic, and bring it in line with the present realities.
Economic cooperation is one of priorities in the CIS activity, but
its business resource is not used in full. To this end, he proposed
to create business-centres in CIS countries. Armenia’s exposition at
the All-Russia Exhibition Centre is one of the best expositions,
Rushailo stressed.

`Despite objective and subjective difficulties, cooperation between
CIS countries, primarily in such areas as economy, security, the
fight against crime and humanitarian aspects, is developing
effectively,’ Armenian President Robert Kocharyan stressed. At the
same time, the president noted that it is necessary to increase the
CIS activity.

`Since the CIS has been organised, Armenia is taking an active part
in the work of CIS structures,’ Armenian Prime Minister Andranik
Margaryan said. The prime minister said he is hopeful that
constructive discussions will allow CIS states to find an optimal
solution to the problem and make the CIS a more effective mechanism.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress